Matthew Arnold was a severe critic of literature. Essays In Criticism was his monumental work in which he let no great poet go unscathed. Usually such critics would be asked a question: why don't you write a great poem? The Forsaken Merman was Arnold's answer to this question in which he proved not only could he create poems with hilarious themes but incorporate multi tunes also into a single poem. After creating a few more poems, he returned to academics and criticism.

The Cornish legend holds that Matthew can still be heard singing from the deep sea.

01. Ocean is nothing but Land submerged.

Matthew Arnold relates a very strange story in his poem The Forsaken Merman. The poem is beautiful and picture-like, descriptions of seascape and landscape vivid, and presentation of the theme logical. But the story is actually impossible to happen, and the inspiration for this theme has been traced to a spectacular sea-side village named Zennor in the County of Cornwall in England. It is not clear whether he happened to visit this village or not, but there indeed is a Mermaid Chair in the Zennor Church and also an associated legend of a hero having this poet's name, Matthew. Perhaps Arnold might have heard or read about this legend. A mermaid who lived in the Pendour Cove in Zennor was entranced by Matthew's exotic singing in the church and she regularly visited the church in disguise. One day Matthew found out, fell deeply in love with her, and followed her to her deep-sea cavern beneath the waves. They were never seen again on the land. The Cornish legend holds that, in silent nights, Matthew can still be heard singing from the deep sea, the sweet music faintly brought to shore by the breeze. Matthew Arnold only reversed the role of characters in his poem- it was the woman who went to the sea in the poem and later returned to land, abandoning her husband and children.

A lady from the land making her home in the deep sea cavern.

02. Lady from the land makes home in sea cavern.

Margaret, a lady from the land, happened to fall in love with and marry a King of the Sea, a merman. She now has her home and her children in a cavern in the deep sea where they live. The winds are all asleep there. We know the wind rages only on the surface, and beneath it, everything is calm except for ocean currents. The cavern is sand-strewn, cool and deep, and cold and dark as the abyss is. Sea plants, sea animals and sea snakes coil and twine all around their home. Sometimes great whales could be seen swimming by, like the great ships moving on the surface of the sea. Margaret has a loving husband and endeared children in that abysmal wonderland and she is now leading a happy and contented life in the depth of the sea, apparently.

Life arriving alighted on meteorites from cosmic realms.

03. Where the winds are all asleep.

Days of festivities in the land are endeared and nostalgic to all terrestrial human beings living far away from land. One day, on a silent Christmas night, the sounds of pealing church bells from the land reach the ocean bottom. Man is mortal, temperamental and selfish. But the watery world is something precious, rare and ethereal. Ocean is where life originated, smithereens of which arrived alighted on meteorites from cosmic realms unimaginably distant, and deposited there on the ocean aeons ago. Considering the longevity or brevity of the history of life on sea or life on land, there is difference in the subtlety of these living forms’ loyalty to the place of their origin and habitat. Sea life is ancient and primeval whereas land life is recent and experimental, aged only a few million years. The sea demands much in loyalty from her inhabitants but the loyalty of land-locked beings to the place of origin of their life is brittle and untested. This test of character is what we are going to see in the poem now.

Church bells from the land reach where the winds are all asleep.

04. The Church On The Hill Side.

Hearing the toll of church bells from far away land, Margaret becomes home-sick and wishes to rise to the surface, reach land and take part in the Christmas festivities there. She forgets she is a mother and wife now. It is terrible and strange that she has become tired of sea-life by overnight. Or has she been always disliking sea life but pretending to liking it- the terrestrial conceit of a woman? She says:

"It will be Easter time in the world- ah me! And I loose my poor soul Merman, here with thee."

It means, it is mirth and happiness in the upper world, but ah me- I am doomed in sorrow and isolation in the nether world. She asked her merman’s permission to go to land and he generously gives it. So, with her loving husband's permission, she rises from the sea and reaches her home in land. The land has its thrills, beauties and enjoyments just as the sea has its. Soon Margaret forgets her family left behind in the deep sea.

From the deep sea in search of beloved wife.

05. From the deep sea in search of beloved wife.

Mermen and angels are thought to be alike in many respects. Ardence, affection, kindness and mercy are their characteristics. Monarchs of the deep, reflecting the magnanimity and loftiness of the limitless ocean, keep their vows of chastity and integrity. The King of the Sea waited long for his wife's return from the land. At last, being anxious, one day, with their children, he too rises from the sea, comes to land and visits the church where Margaret usually prayed.

Generations of grief in the tumultuous soul of the holy trinity.

06. Steps to the Church where Aliens walked.

They secretly stood outside and peeped inside through the church window. Being not humans and therefore aliens in land, they dared not go inside. This grief-stricken trio consisting of father, daughter and son knew nothing about the Christian kindness that may or may not be flowing through that church. They were a holy trinity unto themselves, stricken by grief. Generations of grief - creative grief - had been what caused that cosmic particle from stars deposited aeons ago on the ocean to germinate, grow and evolve into life forms. Wind and waves and sky, and the warmth of the earth, could never have quietened the tumult in their souls. God manifests through man in his acts of kindness, consideration and ardence. It is man’s debt to his creator to quieten and pacify the minds of others. Won't humans ever pay their debts to their gods?

A mother of ingratitude, her eyes sealed to the holy book.

07. Her eyes were sealed to the Holy Book.

Margaret’s face was buried deep in the Bible. Through mutually understandable gestures, the Merman King tried in many ways to signal to her that their children very much longed for her. He asked the children to call and appeal to the motherhood in her in their tiny voices, in the hope that children's voices would be dear to a mother's ear. The children called their mother in their voices familiar to her. It was all in vain. She listened not. ‘She gave them never a look, for her eyes were sealed to the holy book!' It is the first time the readers of this poem curse and hate the holy book. Is the holy book an excuse for causing pangs of pain in other hearts? To alleviate the pain in other hearts, to act as the representative of God- that was what human beings were sent to the world for and given the holy book. She was pretending. So it was useless persuading her to go back with them to the sea, they learned. She was determined not to return to sea.

We will gaze from the sand hills, at the white sleeping town.

08. We will gaze from the sand hills.

Before returning to sea with his children, the Merman once again visited the church and the town where his wife lived. He could see she was living a very happy and contended life. She was seen always singing of supreme joy. 'She sang her fill, singing most joyfully.' However, the merman could see a tear dropping down her sorrow-clouded eye. She was, must have been, actually sad for her children left at sea. The cold, strange eyes of her little girl child looking at her through the cold church window must have created pangs in her guilty soul. The insolent indifference of this earthly woman orphaned her little children then and there. So, the disappointed merman with his children decided to return to sea. Before he goes, he proposes to his children to visit the land in moonlit nights again. They would come and see the church and the town by nights. He sings:

"We will gaze from the sand-hills At the white sleeping town, At the church on the hill side And then come back down."

The pain in the eyes of a girl-child left out by her mother.

09. We will gaze from the sand hills at the lost town.

Matthew Arnold created the closing lines of this poem ever memorable. The grief of a girl-child who is left out and abandoned by her belovèd mother can never be, and shall be, described in words. It is unspeakable taboo, sacred. Tennyson perfectly put this more touchingly than anyone in his sensational classic, In Memoriam:

‘I sometimes feel it is a guilt To put in words the grief I feel.’

The readers will never forget the pain in the cold strange eyes of the girl-child looking at her mother through the church windows. Arnold wished to make the world weep with his poem; he succeeded.

A special note on Matthew Arnold and his musical experiment.

Matthew Arnold was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famous teacher who introduced the Public School System in England. The son did not fail his father even once, and not only shone like a star in literature, but excelled as an Academic and Inspector of Schools also. Even though he was a critic in his blood, we will forget he is, once we get deep into his poems. He is a very imaginative and gifted poet by birth too. What he really was- a fine critic or a finer poet- perhaps he himself might not have known well. Anyway, his over-indulgence in and unquenched thirst for literary criticism was responsible for the scantiness of his poems. We would wish, had he produced more poems. His creations in both fields are excellent and equally respected.

It is known that no one has ever orchestrated The Forsaken Merman in full, which is great loss to the world. Matthew Arnold used a variety of exotic tunes in the song to express each move and twist in mood appropriately and touchingly along the song which, it seems, he conceived as a complete musical entertainment for the world. I approached this song not as an academic but as an appreciator, an enjoyer, earnestly trying to sing it. I was thrilled at my success, at how Matthew Arnold was there to guide me through the movements of music in each line, through each phrase. I did nothing exceptional or special in my endeavour but sang it repeatedly with love till the original music unfolded itself; the original tune which was in the poet’s mind while writing this poem clicked and opened automatically, as a favour to me. I felt it was the poet’s gift to generations beyond ages. It was like simplicity and humbleness unlocking a closed and secured thing of precious beauty through perseverance and consistence; academic achievements and pedagogical experience have nothing to do with it. It was that simple. It must be said that this clever poet skillfully locked his lines and hid his music to prevent the lazy and the haughty from accessing the sublime beauty in them. He wished only the genuinely interested and adequately unorthodox persons to succeed in singing his lines.

The musical experiment Matthew Arnold did in The Forsaken Merman is unique in the field of music as well as in the field of literature. Only one other poet has ever attempted such a bold, thrilling experiment in music as well as in literature. It was Alfred Lord Tennyson, and the poem was The Lotos-Eaters. In this song Tennyson invented and used a number of tunes to move in synchronization with the tantalizingly changing actions of his intoxicated characters. He adapted even the swaying to-and-fro motions of the ship carrying the lotos-eaten dreamers to the island to corresponding movements in the music in this poem. The world is still waiting for good orchestrated and choreographed versions of The Forsaken Merman and The Lotos-Eaters. They are yet to come, but they will come indeed.

A primitive prototype rendering of this song was made in a crude tape recorder decades earlier, in 1984. In 2014, a home made video of this song was released. In 2015, a third version with comparatively better audio was released. The next version, it's hoped, would be fully orchestrated. It's free for reuse, and anyone interested can develop and build on it, till it becomes a fine musical video production, to help our little learners, and their teachers.

01. Ocean is nothing but land submerged. By Asea. 02. Lady from the land makes home in sea cavern. By Chris Gunns. 03. Where the winds are all asleep. By Ricardo Tulio Gandelman. 04. The church on the hillside. By Jonathan Billinger. 05. From the deep sea in search of beloved wife. By Jan Reurink. 06. Steps to the church where aliens walked. Author Not Known. 07. Her eyes were sealed to the holy book. By Matthias Feige. 08. We will gaze from the sand hills. By Steve Cadman, London UK. 09. We will gaze at the lost town. By Daderot. Mermaid Statue at Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio. 10. The Forsaken Merman Video Title. By Bloom Books Channel 11. Author profile of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.

About the author and accessing his other literary works.

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of 'Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book'. Edits and owns Bloom Books Channel. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala. Father British Council-trained English Teacher and mother university-educated. Matriculation with High First Class, Pre Degree studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship, discontinued Diploma Studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single.

Wikinut already is a place rich in experienced writers and readers. I know it is full of master craftsmen, you one of the foremost among them. I really enjoy working and behaving among geniuses, the real inspiration and upliftment for me, to be enjoyed only once in a lifetime. Thank you Rathnashikamani.

A poem I have loved since a child (Also Dover Beach and Rostrum and Sohrab). Always remembered the line 'Long prayers', I said, 'in the world they say' “Christians pray volubly but are often quite cruel in their thinking (or lack of).

The Persian Poet Firdausi's epic is a fine creation in the world literature. The first part of this epic, The Birth Of Rustem was excellently translated into English around 1787 by Mr. Joseph Champion of the East India Company who worked in Bengal as the Company Pay Master. The second part Sohrab Is Born and the third part Rustem Slays Sohrab were both translated probably in 1817 by Doctor. James Atkinson, the famous professor and surgeon in the British India Service, again in Bengal. The concluding fourth part, Rustam And Akwan Dev was translated by the Cambridge scholar Edward Henry Palmer. These were fine translations which brought this epic to the common man's attention. The Forsaken Merman also equals the frantic imaginations of the Persian mind. Because I sing this song, I know it by heart, and often have taught it without a book. Thank you Merawyn J. Harrison for sharing similar intimate feelings.

Poets are accused to be unrealistic day-dreamers who are given to fancy. Day-dreaming and fancying all do and take off, but only a few can safely land also. W B Yeats was a perfect poet who could do both. Not many have expressed fancy in more beautiful words than he did, and fewer still have reminded the world of its duties and responsibilities as effectively. This poem has always been a sensation among the poetry-reading public and is the international song and manifesto of solitude-seekers.

Who will not wish to go to a Lake Island of Innisfree?

01. Crowded city streets, the dread of poets.

William Butler Yeats was an Irish Poet whose poems are noted for rich musical content. The Lake Isle Of Innisfree also was born out of an exquisite simple tune. Anyone walking through crowded city streets in any country subjecting himself to vehicle fumes, noise and dust and the irritation of rubbing elbows with others in congested and closed quarters, will wish to go to some place he knows where things are calm, quiet and spacious. All will have one such place in his mind. The placid and quiet Lake Isle of Innisfree has become the universal symbol that comes into any poetry reader's mind when thinking about a place that would soothe his soul. Yeats immortalized the place of his choice through this poem.

The dream of all poets: a secluded hut in a lonely island.02. The roadside dream of a poet.

The poet is lying buried under and entangled in the clutches of a mad city life. It has finally become such unbearable and suffocating for him that if it continues to go on so, he thinks, he will arise and go to Innisfree never to return. Standing in the street, he dreams of the beautiful and quiet Lake Isle of Innisfree and the secluded and self-sufficient life he would have lived there. The usual questions that arise in our mind would be, where he will live on this island, what will he drink and what will he eat.

A small cabin made of clay and wattles on a lonely islet.03. Open fire gives the wattle roof a steaming effect.

On arriving there he would build a small cabin, made of clay and wattles available in plenty in any island. The problem of housing is thus solved. For food, he will turn to cultivation of beans, a sustaining, nutritious and easy-to-produce food eaten by hard labourers everywhere. And he will place a bee-hive somewhere in the island and collect honey which is another concentration of compact energy. Who will say honey would be scant in an island of flowers? Thus he will lead a satisfied and self-sufficient life in the island, listening to the humming of bees and lying alone contented in some bee-loud glade. What a contrast would it be to the thick city life in Belfast or London! Seeing how the questions of food and shelter are addressed, we can only hope he would be roaming the island properly dressed too in his revelry, clothed in whatever is available on the island in the form of twigs, leaves and strings.

Ideal peace is a dew-drop falling on the heated head of a cricket.04. The mid-lake abode of quietness and loneliness.

In Innisfree, finally the poet will be able to get a little peace. The poet's conception of peace is quite different from that of others, is strange, and lovely. In modern times, peace is an interval between two wars. Then what is peace to this poet? Even his idea of peace is modeled on the usual early morning sights one sees in rustic island life. The crickets in the island have been singing and shrieking all through the night, and are now sitting with heated heads, wishing for a bit of coolness to come from somewhere. It was then that the dews of night and the morning mist condensed into dew drops and a drop of peace from the trees above fell straight into the heated head of that cricket. What a peace- that cricket yelled! The peace that cricket enjoyed then, there, is what peace is to the poet.

Which is more beautiful- morning, noon or night?

05. Alone in the middle of a bee-loud glade.

How are the morning, noon, evening and midnight in the Lake Isle of Innisfree? The readers of this poem would already have guessed about the freshness and nascence of the dew-filled and misty dawns in that island. The noon would be the most dreary and dull in all places but the noon in Innisfree is as charming and pleasing as the evenings in other places. And the evenings there are exotic, due to the presence of thousands and thousands of beautiful migratory and nestling birds. And don't anyone think the nights there would be devoid of similar beauty. The midnights of Innisfree are illuminated by tiny lights of millions of fire-flies. What else is needed to enchant and seduce a poet?

All alone in a bee-loud glade: roused by car horns in the middle of a street.

06. Inspiration for the poem: Lough Gill in Ireland.

Alas! Perhaps a car horn on his very back might have roused him from his daydreams: he is still walking the city streets of London, not reclining in the pleasantness of the lake island. However, he hears in his ears the very sound of lake water lapping gently over the shore. Standing in the roadways and walking the footpaths in that crowded city, he still hears lake water resounding deep in his heart. Yes, he can have his cool revelry and daydreams; that is his privilege. He is entitled to it. We can leave him standing there in the street, thinking about his Paradise Lost, hoping he won't jump into the onrush of traffic in the city, in his delirium.

This poem, Lake Isle Of Innisfree, was born with an exquisite tune which suited every line, word and syllable in the poem. Gramophone recordings of Yeats himself reciting this poem were made in 1932. Do not anyone think he brought out the original music hidden in this poem in this recording of his- he just read it like reading any piece of prose. It is unnatural for a poet of this magnitude to recite his poem killing his music. This might have been due to two reasons: Perhaps he may have feared the recitation pundits of his times who covered absence of musical skills by showing themselves more on pronunciation and impurities like accents. Or he may have wished his tune to never come out in his times- to be rediscovered only by later generations. This observation by the this writer is made not without taking into account how Yeats, in Chapter XV, Volume III of The Collected Works of W B Yeats- 1916 published by Simon and Schuster, described how he came to write this poem. But still the fact remains- this poem has beautiful inborn music.

Bloom Books Channel has a video of this song. A primitive prototype rendering of this song was made in a crude tape recorder decades earlier, in 1984. In 2014, a home made video of this song was released. In 2015, a third version with comparatively better audio was released. The next version, it's hoped, would be fully orchestrated. It's free for reuse, and anyone interested in can develop and build on it, till it becomes a fine musical video production, to help our little learners and their teachers.

01. Crowded city streets, the dread of poets By Thaejas Kocherlakota. 02. The roadside dream of a poet By Kerala Tourism.org. 03. Open fire gives the wattle roof a steaming effect By Colin Smith. 04. The mid-lake abode of quietness and loneliness By Eibsee. 05. Alone in the middle of a bee-loud glade By Twiddleblatt. 06. Inspiration for the poem: Lough Gill in Ireland By Paul Mcllroy. 07. Lake Isle Of Innisfree Video Title By Bloom Books Channel. 08. Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.

Meet the author: About the author and accessing his other literary works.

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of 'Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book'. Edits and owns Bloom Books Channel. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala. Father British Council-trained English Teacher and mother university-educated. Matriculation with High First Class, Pre Degree studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship, discontinued Diploma Studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single.

Great poets speak things in the belief that there would be people coming after them who would explain things. The writer of this article did nothing except capture in print a few hilarious moments from the past he shared with his dear students. Yeats was a very imaginative person and we have every reason to think that his imagination were bright and colourful. He very much would have wished to include appropriate and fine pictures in his poem. The pictures are homage to this wonderful poet, my way of showing respect to his capturing eyes.

It is good to know that this Irish poet W.B.Yeats has admirers the world over. They like not only his poetical style but the theme of his poems also, especially the theme of The Lake Isle Of Innisfree. As the world becomes more and more crowded with buildings and vehicles and people and villages become more and more congested and townish, man’s desire for seeking isolated spots like Innisfree overwhelms, but alas, there is nowhere to go for many. So this poem provides the experience of spending hours in such a secluded and protected haunt and so, the popularity of this poem.

Let your course of study be a grand success dear Marva. I am happy to know that the article was useful to a young learner, and so, has served its purpose. Thank you Marva. Let all good poets go with you all through your good life.

It is like we going inside a riverside jungle, lying under a tree propping out back on the back, listening to the voices of the birds chirping nearby and the gentle murmur of the river flowing away. He who can have this experience everyday is lucky. Thank you Dear Blesson Pinheiro.

Try to sing it and once you become able to sing it as easily as the poet might have done, your appreciation and enjoyment would become complete which no academic studies can substitute with anything known.

It was the setting of nature at that particular time and place that was super, the feelings of enjoying which moment the poet tried to convey to us in which attempt he succeeded brilliantly. We can feel the wind and water blowing and flowing across us. Thank you Hisham for reading.

See what the poet writes towards the end of the poem. He has lost the beautiful and solacing scene for ever and is now walking the busy and crowded city streets. But in his mind's eye he can still see the island and still hear the waves gently lapping over the shore. We can at least imagine and see things in our mind's eye. Beauty spots like this are common in all lands. And not all people will have opportunities to go visiting such places. I hope the pictures are a substitute. Thank you Liya for appreciating the original poem and this article.

It is actually the poem The Lake Isle Of Innisfree by W B Yeats that is marvellous and having a great fascinating depth. The review here is, as I know, a weak attempt to relive the joys the reading and singing of it imparted. It is relishing to know that this review satisfied you a little. Thank you Sree Lakshmi.

The poem ''the Lake Isle of Innisfree" written by W.B.Yeats is a nice poem. The imagination made by Yeats is very fantastic. I really wonder by reading it. The thoughts made by the poet are really appreciable. Really the poet made an attempt to the readers to think and imagine the situations that he made in the poem deeply. Reading his poem wonders me. I am veery lucky.

Thank you Reshma, Mithun, Harsha, Sini, Greeshma Girish and dear Alida Ashok for going through the original poems and its appreciation here and for your comments. I am glad that you found the poem interesting, beautiful and useful.

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About The Editor

Born and brought up in a rural hamlet, Nanniyode, in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science in Mar Ivanios College, Trivandrum with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma Studies in Electronics and entered politics. Taught English Poetry for 30 years and served equally long in State Civil Service. Continuing. Unmarried and single. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam, including poetical collections, fictions and criticism. Ulsava Lahari, Darsana Deepthi, Puzhayozhukee Eevazhi, Vaidooryam, Manal, Jalaja Padma Raaji, Kaalam Jaalakavaathilil, Goodlaayi Graamum, Time Upon My Window Sill, The Good English Book and Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book are a few among.

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